NBN gridlock: Peak hour congestion takes down FTTN for some

news Some early adopter users of the Coalition’s preferred Fibre to the Node technology on the National Broadband Network are seeing their broadband service slow to a crawl during peak hour periods, leading to questions about the fitness of model for permanent use on the NBN.

The original version of the NBN as envisioned by the previous Labor Government called for most Australian premises to be covered by a full Fibre to the Premises rollout, with the remainder to be covered by satellite and fixed wireless technology.

The Coalition’s controversial Multi-Technology Mix instituted by Malcolm Turnbull as Communications Minister has seen the company switch to a technically inferior model re-using and upgrading the legacy copper (Fibre to the Node) and HFC cable networks owned by Telstra and Optus.

The FTTN technology is theoretically capable of providing speeds approaching 100Mbps, which is significantly higher than the up to 24Mbps speeds currently available under the ADSL2+ broadband standard, which most Australians currently use to access broadband.

However, according to evidence seen by Delimiter, some users are seeing wide speed fluctuations which are making the FTTN platform almost unusable during peak periods.

Newcastle resident Robbie Gratton, for instance, recently wrote to political figures such as Communications Minister Mitch Fifield and Shadow Communications Minister Jason Clare, as well as his local member Sharon Claydon, to complain that his brand new FTTN connection was seeing substantial problems.

Gratton recently signed up for a FTTN NBN service with Optus, choosing the 100Mbps/40Mbps plan — the top FTTN offering the telco offers.

Initially, the resident noted, he was getting very solid speeds — close to 90Mbps. “I was very pleased with the result and after being a sceptic of the FTTN approach, using vectored VDSL2 to deliver the NBN, I was about to call myself a convert to the idea,” he said.

However, shortly after signing up, Gratton realised that during peak hours — from 4pm to around midnight every day — his FTTN connection turns “quickly from the best connection I’ve ever had, to the worst”.

“Ping times go from 13ms to around 140ms, download speed decreases dramatically from the average 85Mbps to as low as 1mbps, while upload speeds halve from around 30mbps to 15Mbps,” he said. “It almost makes me pine for the ADSL2+ connection with ping times averaging 20ms and a strong, constant, reliable 12mbps down speed.”

Gratton said that to him, and to other technically savvy Australians, this pattern of behaviour would suggest either that the NBN company itself had a backhaul issue from its neighbourhood nodes to the local point of interconnect with Optus’ network, or that retail service providers such as Optus aren’t purchasing enough bandwidth from the NBN company to cover peak periods.

“I don’t seem to be the only one having this issue — forums on the NBN have been lit up with people furious, trying to understand how their new NBN service can quickly become as good as their first dial-up connection,” said Gratton. Some examples can be found on Optus’ own forums.

Setting up a new, Optus-approved modem did not fix the issue for Gratton. “I was told over the phone that Optus is aware of congestion at the node during peak times and was given a vague assurance that “equipment has being ordered to fix this, but there is no estimated time frame for the fix”,” he said.

“I’m by no means a networking expert (I’d most likely consider myself slightly more knowledgeable than a novice), however, from what I’ve read on Whirlpool and other websites discussing FTTN, it would seem that these nodes are suffering from a backhaul bottleneck — too little bandwidth to support the subscriber base.”

“My node is meant to be usable by 135 subscribers, I’d wager at the moment, there’d only be a handful of us that have an active service on the node and this is the “service” we have at the moment, I’d hate to think what sub dial-up speeds I’ll be looking at within 18 months.”

Gratton pointed out that NBN company architect Tony Cross had flagged the potential to install what are described as ‘Small Form Factor Pluggables’ into its nodes to be able to boost bandwidth capacity on the infrastructure.

The consumer said that he understood the ‘user pays’ framework that the Coalition has used to justify deploying its Multi-Technology Mix model for the NBN around Australia. However, he said the current model had left “a sour taste” in his mouth.

opinion/analysis
At first glimpse, this story sounds a little crazy. How is it possible that either the NBN company or a large retail ISP such as Optus could have so catastrophically failed to provision sufficient bandwidth for early Fibe to the Node adopters to get a good experience from the infrastructure? FTTN is the most controversial technology in Australia at the moment. Both Optus and the NBN company must be aware that the launch of this technology needs to go off like clockwork.

But I have to say that in reality I am starting to see quite a few stories like this one popping out of the woodwork, when it comes to the Fibre to the Node component of the Coalition’s Multi-Technology Mix. This is why I have highlighted this one.

There are a few common facets to these customer issues. They were all on ADSL2+ previously, getting reliable if not stellar speeds. The shift to FTTN delivered much higher speeds initially, but after a short period (presumably as neighbours also hopped onto the platform), they started seeing slowdowns during peak periods. After work hours has particularly been an issue, as well as on weekends.

I also suspect that the stories I have heard may just be the tip of a very disturbing iceberg. I would prepare to be hearing quite a few more complaints about FTTN stories over the next few months. Because it’s usually the case that if someone is technically aware enough to complain to Delimiter about an issue on the NBN, there will be many others who are keeping quiet or just trying to get the problem resolved with the NBN company and their retail service provider.

Of course, there is no doubt that FTTN does have the potential to deliver excellent services. I am on TransACT’s FTTN network in Canberra. I usually get speeds of up to 90Mbps even during peak periods. But it sounds like the NBN company’s FTTN network is not quite up to that standard yet. What we are seeing here is most likely early teething problems for FTTN.

However — teething problems or not — the experience that Gratton and others are suffering through is certainly not what they were promised when it comes to the NBN. I certainly hope that the NBN company and its retail service providers work very hard on resolving these issues quickly. Because if we know one thing about the NBN (any form of it), it is that it is supposed to be an upgrade. Nobody should have to look back to the days of reliable old ADSL2+ with fondness — that would be worse than a farce.

193 COMMENTS

“Some early adopter users of the Coalition’s preferred Fibre to the Node technology on the National Broadband Network are seeing their broadband service slow to a crawl during peak hour periods, leading to questions about the fitness of model for permanent use on the NBN.”

No who would ever have thunk it eh?

BTW – that wasn’t a swipe at you Renai, for doing your job (and doing it well, as usual :) in simply reporting the facts.

@rizz @brisyline ignorance of a topic leading to gullibility in accepting unlikely explanation. Using unfounded conclusion to claim they’re right. Perfectly encapsulating several years of their posts (second time today; references “biased” coalition numbers actually Quigleys). Amazing.

I know the CVC pricing is ridiculous and something that needs to be addressed asap but I don’t think it is fair to pile on NBN Co for this one. Reading through the Newcastle NBN forum it’s hard to come to any other conclusion than Optus is just a shit ISP who doesn’t know how “to Internet”. And that is just the people posting to Whirlpool. I’ve got two relatives in Hamilton that Optus say have been hooked up to FTTN but are still on ADSL. They really are just shit.

@do spot on. As enquired previously it would be nice if Renai was to actually ask the cards installed (then we can identify transist capacity).

Gut feeling this won’t be FTTN to PoI capacity as this would display remarkable incompetence by NBNCo (above all previous); saving literally hundreds of dollars for a $250k node with plenty of fibre cores available.

@Richard Given Morrow’s Testi-monial at #nbnsen yesterday, I’d suggest any attempt to get that level of technical detail would be treated as commercial in confidence and not released. Cause, you know, NBN wouldn’t want to tip off the competition in the Australian FTTN market.

If you reduce revenue from connection fees and make NBNCo more dependent on data (CVC) revenue then under provisioning of capacity on the NBN portion of the network is unlikely to occur because it will have a direct impact on revenue.

Oh and with lower connection fees, the number of active connections will rise.

Also you know what I find rather humorous, those who support MTM and come here to “tell us all” about everything NBN… still don’t even know that it’s no longer NBNCo?

I even pointed this out to one of them only a few days back…

Perhaps I’m being (like them) pedantic but FFS, if they can’t even get the basics right (as they continue to dwell on past estimations and/or point the finger at NBNCo instead of pointing it now at NBN, where it deserves to be pointed) how TF are they expecting to understand and then convey (lol) the big ticket issues?

> But Mathew MTM is only required to deliver the speed 79% are current paying for how would it be faster than fttp

Because that is the minimum speed and as Gratton has helpfully shown us 87.99Mbps is achievable. We won’t know how much faster than FTTP with speed tiers, but I would suggest that with the target of 33Mbps, that FTTN without speed tiers would exceed that benchmark.

Does anyone have an example from elsewhere in the world where a FTTN network delivers faster speeds than a FTTP network?

Wake up fool…are you really that desperate to need your first win ever, against me?

Well still no soup for you, Dick.

FYI – the name was registered by the previous mob in 2009 (yes the ones you distance yourself from) as…

“NBN Co Limited”…

So again if you want to be a Richard, Richard, I didn’t see you say Limited. So you are wrong yet AGAIN (let’s just say still and be done with it eh) Dick.

But as the links clearly suggest (and you didn’t even know…LOL) they now are officially known as – NBN™ .

So instead of frothing at the mouth thinking you’ve finally got me, refer to the links I very kindly supplied for the uneducated ;) and even NBN’s media links, which were altered from NBNCo to NBN (gee why would they alter their media links, logo and pay $700K to still be NBNCo)?

Then again seeing their complete mismanagement thus far, via your plan *sigh* who knows, any fuck up is within their reach 24/7…

But as usual, please don’t let mere facts stand in the way of you and the mirror Dick.

> I know the CVC pricing is ridiculous and something that needs to be addressed asap

There is a very simple equation: CVC + AVC = ARPU. The required ARPU can only be changed if you reduce costs which is not easy. So if you want to reduce CVC then AVC will need to rise. If AVC rises, then less people will connect and people will choose slower speeds. On slower speeds, people will tend to download less.

So some Technical details to back this up, most nodes are using the AL ISAM 7330 with only 2x 1/1Gbps backhaul links out of a possible 8 (this would require 3 additional line cards) so LNP_nbn are being tight arses.

That’s 5.21/5.21 mbps of bandwidth per user on a 192 port node!!! Compare that with GPON and its 78/39 mbps minimum bandwidth and the difference is pretty stark!!!

This is clearly why they brought in the rule saying they only had to provide 25 mbps for 1 minute out of every 24 hours!

Gosh, If FTTN is already having problems with insufficient backhaul, then those of us on satellite are well and truly stuffed!
Try 140Gbps backhaul for 360000 users, that’s only 388 kbps per user!
That’s around 13 times worse than FTTN, assuming same usage patterns. (and why wouldn’t they be, with a promised new 25Mbps service?)

@cw noticed the same in afr cabinet photo a couple of days ago but too low resolution. Quite a few nodes going in around the outer suburbs, when back in town I’ll try and find the time to chase one down.

NDR isn’t definitive (just ge).

Asked many times here for installed options, few seem interested. Should be no trouble for Renai, discussion with the engineer likely to be very informative.

We are down in Frankston with FTTH on Optus and we too are receiving terrible speeds during peak times – Optus have said their is congestion but have given us no information as to when it will be fixed.

This issue seems to be more related to Optus – possibly oversubscribing people without purchasing sufficient bandwidth from NBN Co, but so far Optus have done nothing to explain the cause.

I have basically the same issue with Exetel (wholesaled Optus) FTTP in Blacktown. Between about 7pm and midnight, what I call “Netflix time”, everything comes grinding to a halt. I have heard (unofficially) that Optus know about the problem, and are just using QoS to keep Netflix traffic working, while everything else suffers.

Some ISP’s had similar problems in some areas when Netflix was introduced because they were blindsided by the load, but the quality ones rectified it as soon as they could. They were also honest about it.

Compare that to these NBN issues where the number of points connecting backhaul is a lot lower, and the only increase is with organic customer growth – not a new killer app / use. i.e. crappy ISP.

I would suggest performing speedtest.net testing during peak times so that results are recorded and aggregated. Nothing better than some public shaming to alter corporate behaviour.

A possibility regarding Netflix performance not suffering is that it may be served by dedicated Netflix peering connections. Another possibility is that a lot of streaming video services will dial back the quality when the throughput can’t be sustained and they only require 5Mb/s for HD.

Telstra FTTN customer here in Gorokan with no noticeable issues during peak time (or in general).

Perhaps the story should be about ‘ISP X doesn’t purchase enough back haul so provides a poor customer experience’. If not enough backhaul is purchased you will get a similar experience regardless of technology. Not every piece needs to be about nbn bashing.

Renai, Optus have a very long reputation for dramatically under provisioning bandwidth across their residential network. Whirlpool and other sites detail years of poor international connectivity and that was when the services were delivered via networks they controlled (their own DSLAM and HFC networks). Now with CVC pricing thrown into mix and Optus only interested in preserving profits, of course something will give.

When an entire area across many different providers starts exhibiting peak time performance issues under FTTN, then there is probably a case.

As an aside, I’m a firm believer in the FTTH model but to start asserting a model isn’t fit for purpose based on a few speed tests from a user on one RSP is a bit of a stretch considering there are plenty of other technical reasons why the mode is inferior.

NBN Co have some very serious questions that they need to answer, not limited to the following;

* Do NBN Co monitor the utilisation of the CVC purchased by the RSP?
* Do NBN Co monitor the utilisation of the FTTN “backhaul” link capacity that NBN Co provision and manage?
* Why does NBN Co insist RSPs by at least as much symmetric CVC capacity as the fastest AVC in the CVC? Even though that does not necessarily protect from congestion as we have seen.
* Why doesn’t NBN Co monitor RSP’s CVC utilisation and insist on a minimum standard of performance, which they appear to unsuccessfully be trying to achieve by specifying minimum CVC capacity that must be purchased.

* Do NBN Co monitor the utilisation of the CVC purchased by the RSP?
Monitor in what sense? If they wanted to know how much is being used could they find out? The answer to that question is yes, but NBN don’t care how much an RSP orders.

* Do NBN Co monitor the utilisation of the FTTN “backhaul” link capacity that NBN Co provision and manage?
Yes but only in the context of delivering whatever the service contract states (to the RSP) so they are meeting their obligations. The FTTN cabinets are capable of being upgraded to support additional backhaul links (assuming they aren’t setup during install) and each individual link can be upgraded to 10GbE if memory serves…

* Why does NBN Co insist RSPs by at least as much symmetric CVC capacity as the fastest AVC in the CVC? Even though that does not necessarily protect from congestion as we have seen.
That might have more to do with purely a minimum purchase requirement. I don’t think NBN Co will provision a CVC link from a POI to an RSP less than 100/100. And CVC pipes, as with most transit/carrier level transit, will be symmetrical by design.

* Why doesn’t NBN Co monitor RSP’s CVC utilisation and insist on a minimum standard of performance, which they appear to unsuccessfully be trying to achieve by specifying minimum CVC capacity that must be purchased.
Because that isn’t their job? That is the job of the RSP. If you don’t like what a particular RSP is doing with respect to contention ratio, as part of a free market you are entitled to ceases services with that RSP and move to another that is presumably better.

“That might have more to do with purely a minimum purchase requirement. I don’t think NBN Co will provision a CVC link from a POI to an RSP less than 100/100. And CVC pipes, as with most transit/carrier level transit, will be symmetrical by design.”

No, it is as I described. If an RSP wanted to provide a symmetric 250/250Mbps retail service to an enduser they would need to order a 500/250Mbps AVC.

But if they do that, NBN Co will insist that the RSP buys at least 500Mbps of *symmetric* CVC, even if they are going to limit the end user to 250/250Mbps retail service.

Look at SkyMesh and ask yourself why they are only offering the 100/100Mbps retail service and not faster?

The answer is they have to buy no ore CVC in the down direction and because the AVC is asymmetric they can rely on the excess capacity on the uplink side from all the 100/40 plans that weren’t using it.

“Because that isn’t their job? That is the job of the RSP. If you don’t like what a particular RSP is doing with respect to contention ratio, as part of a free market you are entitled to ceases services with that RSP and move to another that is presumably better.”

Yet they are doing more than enforcing a minimum CVC purchase amount. They are setting the limit in a way that relates to the fastest AVC in the CVC.

This appears to be some crude attempt at enforcing a minimum service standard, but it is poorly done.

But given all the complaints it would make sense for NBN Co to simply point to utilisation charts that prove NBN Co isn’t the issue.

The estimated retail pricing in the NBNCo Corporate Plan from the first 2010 edition prepared by Labor clearly outlines that a differentiator between RSPs will be purchasing different amounts of CVC per user. The amusing part is that if an RSP purchases insufficient CVC then it is the users who purchase faster speeds that will be hit even harder because of dropped packets and the way the TCP congestion control algorithms work.

Something we all (well most here) complained about even during our chosen FttP roll out, after Simon Hackett brought it to our (well my, anyway – indirectly of course) attention.

We were also concerned about the POI situation via the ACCC’s odd decision (and Conroy’s filter – but that’s another story)?

Why?

Because you see Mathew, unlike those here who support MTM come what may and will accept every down fall, fuck up, timetable blow out, cost blow out and dumb decision with open arms, whilst simultaneously bagging FTTP 24/7 and lauding FTTN 24/7 of course, even when the scenarios were/are exactly the same (and such people have totally contradictory positions for when the same was occurring with FTTP as it is now with MTM)…I believe most here simply want what we believe is best for all Aussies.

Not what’s best for one’s cyclopic ideology or political subservience.

I think you will struggle to quote me criticising the technical merits of FTTP. I don’t feel the need to talk about the benefits there are plenty of posts on that note.

What you will find is a long history of criticising Labor’s FTTP plan because it was very clear from the beginning that speed tiers would widen the digital divide. It was evident from the first NBNCo Corporate Plan that Labor understood the speed necessary for the NBN to be a game changer (100Mbps) and yet were happy to approve a plan which predicted 50% would connect at 12Mbps and never see those benefits.

What you will find is that I like to remind people that for all their complaining more than 79% of Australians connected to the NBN wouldn’t notice a difference between FTTN, HFC & FTTP. Many people have ADSL connections faster than the 12Mbps FTTP speed tier. The point is that even if you choose the second-best (GPON) technology choice, but develop bad policy you will end up with a network that is slower than a network built with slower technology.

* The best technology choice is direct fibre which is what Google Fibre is building, but that would bring me back to the point I made when Google Fibre was announced. Australia would be better off providing Google with a $20 billion incentive to build their network in Australia.

> I believe most here simply want what we believe is best for all Aussies.

I would like to agree with you, but in 6 years of discussing this, the attitude of too many FTTP supports is as long as I can have my 100Mbps FTTP connection, I don’t care that 79% are connected at 25Mbps or slower and are denied all of the benefits that the NBN will be providing to me.

For example, video conferencing was promoted as one of the benefits, yet in Low-income users denied NBN benefits appeared this:
“With the quality of high definition that you’ve got, being able to come across this sort of a network, you could easily have a quick hook-up and actually work out, ‘OK, do I need to take him to hospital, or could we keep him at home?’,” Mr Smith said.
But when The Australian approached Senator Conroy and Mr Quigley to describe the level of service users could expect at lesser network speeds, they said high-definition video conferencing was not possible on the NBN’s most basic package.
“You certainly can’t do high-definition video service on a 1 megabits per second upstream — it’s impossible,” Mr Quigley said.

I’ve posted the above quote several times in different forums, but the overall response is that this situation is acceptable or the laughable ‘Labor’s plan is a conservative worst case’. 6 years later it is clear that Labor’s plan was optimistic.

It’s 2 months after, but fair call Mathew and a very good argument. Labor’s pricing was dysfunctional as well. Higher speeds that would give the NBN a purpose unaffordable for so many. It’s a pity that this hasn’t changed under the current government. It threatens the NBN’s viability.

Jason, wringing what isn’t really there out of people’s posts is not helpful. You and I have the political and technical high ground, but it has to be more than cheap pot shots at someone who we know sees some sense and is knowledgeable.

“Labor’s FTTP plan because it was very clear from the beginning that speed tiers would widen the digital divide.”
The MTM isn’t worst what was it 100% 25Mbps 90% 50mbps and 60% 100Mbps at lest with FTTP you have a choice.
Or that the MTM by 2020 are expecting 38% on 100Mbps. At lest by 2026 % you like to quote 100Mbps cost the same as 25Mbps is there still a digital divide then lol

Lol ” but develop bad policy you will end up with a network that is slower than a network built with slower technology.”. Or build a slower network that is even slower than the one your replacing.

Well labor did do a tender for fttn but no one really wanted lol

Yes video conferencing and you can’t even do that on 100mbps during peak time on fttn lol

Basicly your are happy to have the digital divide what was your response life isn’t fair lol. You don’t mind a $56B MTM when we could have had FTTP for $64B

Lol reality consider that the CP16 has $56B in its cost I am not misquoting and you keep on firing up about it which one of the I do it but also helping the pro FTTP argument same as your argument ohh CP change to hide the $27B and 5Years behind there own target the more you do it the more we laugh.
I still laugh with the pre election policy you link showing no use of HFC but like you jumping up and down saying they where

It depends if its limited to area’s of specific nodes its MTM issue not putting proper hardware and fibre connections to a node. If its an entire POI region its RSP and CVC issue which is also MTM issue as they said they would be discounting that … soon™

As the Tech Support for my family members, I can report Optus HFC Cable is also suffering the same issues. 1-3Mbps download speed in the evenings is common, down from a fairly solid 80-90Mbps only 12 months ago.

My neighbor asked me the other day when we were getting NBN because his Optus cable was terrible in the evening. I had to tell him he basically already had NBN and if it was bad now then wait until the rest of the street connected.

This and other posts indicate that there is a strong possibility that the root cause is Optus ordering insufficient CVC, as “Optus is aware of congestion at the node during peak times and was given a vague assurance that “equipment has being ordered to fix this, but there is no estimated time frame for the fix”.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out and the identifying of the root cause.

I find it heavily ironic that after several years of Telstra under-investing in ADSL backhaul for their retail and wholesale customers, leading to the dreaded weekday 18:00 to 22:00 slow down, that the exact same thing is happening under the NBN.

When will Govt’s understand that “the market will provide” really doesn’t work in communication infrastructure.

The market will provide if the consumer is prepared to pay. The reality is that in Australia very few are prepared to pay for a premium high speed internet connection. Evidence for this includes:
* Only 16% (down 3% in last 12 months) on NBN fibre connected at 100Mbps
* 79% on 25Mbps or slower speeds
* Zero ISPs offering 1Gbps plans which have been available for order from NBNCo since December 2013.

Labor’s financial model relied on wholesale ARPU rapidly rising to above $100. I’m sceptical that the average Australian will pay this kind of money, especially when you add RSP costs and margin.

Prices for actual services will (almost certainly) decline, but at a rate significantly less than the uptake of faster servers / downloading more.

Plans for AVC pricing are outlined on page 101:
* 1000/400Mbps falls from $150 to $90, while the average speed grows from 30Mbps to 230Mbps.
* Price falls by 40% while average speed grows by 760%

Plans for CVC pricing are outlined on page 103:
* Starts at $20Mbps/Month when the average data usage is 30GB/Month and falls to $8Mbps/Month when the average data usage is 540GB/month.
* Price falls by 2.5 times, while the average data usage grows by 18 times = growth in revenue from CVC of 720% when accounting for price falls.

The NBNCo Corporate Plan (2010) even includes a statement that if end-users are unwilling to consume more data or slow down, then price increases will be required.

Only 16% on 100Mbps – gee I wonder why? Just sign up for the 25Mbps speed tier, and enjoy 1-3Mbps at peak times, just like the 100Mbps connection LOL!
I’d gladly have a 100Mbps connection, but I ain’t paying for something that I’m not going to receive, and therein lies the problem.

This is simply a case of the early adopters selecting the faster plans, and should not be a surprise to anyone. If you want a 100Mbps connection, the likelihood is that you will be watching the NBN and attempting to connect before the service is available. If you are connecting to a basic plan, then it indicates the internet isn’t that important so you are likely to just wait.

In the last 12 months the number on 100Mbps plans has dropped from 19% to 16% as the late adopters connect. FTTN has not influenced the current numbers as less than 7000 were connected at the end of December.

BS Mathew!! If FTTP was covering Business premises the way it was supposed to those numbers would not be dropping, they’d be rising!!!

I should know, I managed the delivery of biz grade comms services for several years and most of my customers would have climbed over broken glass for an affordable 100/40 or 100/100 mbps FTTP connection!

> he was getting very solid speeds — close to 90Mbps. “I was very pleased with the result and after being a sceptic of the FTTN approach, using vectored VDSL2 to deliver the NBN, I was about to call myself a convert to the idea” Gratton.

Great to see that FTTN real world experience is capable of delivering close to the NBN FTTP performance that only 16% have been willing to pay for. If the Liberals removed the speed tiers on FTTN it would deliver faster speeds than the 79% currently connected on NBN fibre at 25Mbps or slower.

If it is an issue with NBN backhaul being over-capacity then this needs to be upgraded by NBNCo.

If it is the more likely case that Optus has not ordered sufficient CVC then it is an issue that Optus need to resolve. At that point we should expect to see several people retract their comments about FTTN performance and admit to making false allegations based on a lack of evidence.

Remove the speed tiers during off-peak time and Gratton’s neighbours would have access to 100Mbps speeds unlike the <25Mbps they are likely to connect at.

If as others have suggested the point of congestion is at the PoI then any FTTP connections on the same PoI should be experiencing similar performance issues.

If you are looking for evidence of speed issues with the NBN, I suggest searching for “NBN Speed” on http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/. Plenty of examples, although the moderators do their best to keep the complaints out of the NBN forum and moved to ISP forums.

The connection is too expensive now for what it delivers. Most people would consider a mobile phone as essential. A $39.90 mobile plan from Amaysim provides unlimited calls / SMS and 5GB of data. For an extra $10 the limit increases to 8GB, and data packs are available for purchase.

For NBN to compete they need to deliver significantly better value to have customers spending $60/month or more especially with 2 year lock in contracts. 12Mbps won’t cut it in the minds of many looking to save costs.

As for the cost of the connection, people can manage their downloading to maximise the value, but you cannot manage the connection speed for that important video conference if it is capped at 12Mbps. Like other utilities (essential services) connection fees should be minimal and usage used to generate revenue.

It makes FTTN look good, which is really weird. But it’s right. (It also makes the speed tiers look bad.)

However, willingness to pay for something (FTTP) is not a reliable indicator of its desirability. The ability to pay cannot be removed as a factor. This other factor makes any conclusions based on the figures you quote crumble.

Refusing to get an NBN connection because it is FTTN and not FTTP just seems silly.

While I disagree with the use of FTTN, if you’re not getting the theoretical maximum on ADSL2+ then you might as well just take whatever you get, not changing doesn’t really do anything to stop FTTN being rolled out elsewhere, it also isn’t going to make your area magically become FTTP either.

It’s unlikely that FTTN is the problem, it’s far more likely that the Fibre backbone does not have the necessary capability to deal with the extra traffic. I, and many other tech heads, warned both the ALP & Libs about this problem, BEFORE the NBN even started construction.

Likely to be backhaul, but it does remind me of one of the reasons vectoring is still in trials in the UK and not deployed. It was in some cases making some customers speeds slower rather than faster. So, more people using their connection in the evening, and assuming that the increased crosstalk won’t be slowing things down much because of vectoring… some people, as they found in the UK trials, can have their speeds reduced by vectoring rather than increased.

Contention ratios for an RSP are highly confidential business information and depend on your customer mix.

Secondly, it is generally accepted that if you have more customers that you can run higher contention ratios because the peaks and troughs tend to flatten out. For example if you have two customers at 100Mbps then you require 200Mbps, but a 1000 customers doesn’t require 100Gbps

NBNCo could publish utilisation rates for each RSP at each PoI. This would provide an unbiased view of which RSPs have congestion at the CVC.

@m all the RSP would have a very accurate idea of the others contention ratios. Particularly for NBN services (given wholesale access prices the same).

Secondly it depended on your user profile not number of users. If of the same profile you must maintain linear growth.

I’m not interested in PoI utilisation, but my provisioned backhaul is (acknowledging its shared). You publish those figures and you’ll see product differentiation takeoff (see non-NBN business market). Today it’s about (low) price, maybe a little content licensing. To be expected with a single wholesale provider.

“* Zero ISPs offering 1Gbps plans which have been available for order from NBNCo since December 2013.”
As you were informed previously, nbn appear to have stopped offering 1Gbps. Indeed, there were RSP(s) offering the service when NBN Co website was advertising them.

“* 79% on 25Mbps or slower speeds”
65% on speeds advertised as higher than what they were previously able to purchase. People currently paying the likes of Telstra 100-120/month for shithouse 1-2mbps ADSL connections. Higher tiered plans on a higher takeup than forecasted. FTTP portion of MTM only portion to be providing ROI; 7% higher than forecasted.

Your dribble narrative is bunk.

“* Only 16% (down 3% in last 12 months) on NBN fibre connected at 100Mbps”
Still no idea of how a percentage works. What’s changed in the last 12 months? People started connecting to FTTN.

He’s so full of it, extrapolate 16% to the 9 Million Premises that where supposed to get FTTP and that’s 1.4 million premises ordering 100/40 …. just shows how full of shite our resident speed troll is!!!

Only an idiot would ignore this premium revenue by building a network that cant provide these speeds to those willing to pay for them!!!

Only a self interested or incompetent politician would create a policy which increased the size of the digital divide. Only a selfish person would support a government policy which is intentionally widening the digital divide.

And Matthew writing off 1.4 million customers wanting 100/40 mbps services (but he uses the “only 16% want it” argument to make us sound insignificant) just shows the inherent stupidity of his argument!

@Jason I was just pointing out he’s coming on a different slant/angle than Richard and Reality.

@Derek Yeah, Much like Richard and Reality, he uses this weird internal/circular logic that only really works when it builds off it’s self. Any fact that disagrees with their stance, just becomes something they ignore.

By mentioning Google Fibre, I wasn’t suggesting that we should offer 1Gbps for free to everyone. I was using it to highlight how appalling limited and slow Labor’s vision was and remains, especially as a party who claims to champion the less fortunate in society.

I’m willing to pay for fibre on demand (actually not strictly true as work will pay) or move. My concern has been and always will be for the many who would benefit from >100Mbps connections but under Labor’s plan would never be able to justify the cost.

Consider this Labor predicted that in 2026 less than 1% of FTTP connections would be 1Gbps. I expect that those connections would be to politicians homes and CEOs and not those people on an average wage. Secondly does anyone seriously think that in 2026, 1% of the country having 1Gbps connections would be considered innovative and world leading when compared with examples like Google Fibre?

“I was using it to highlight how appalling limited and slow Labor’s vision was and remains, especially as a party who claims to champion the less fortunate in society.”

Have you been sleeping (or too busy spreading the 50/12 gospel to have noticed) since Sept 2013. What the last mob said means SFA, we are here now in 2016, Mathew. Let it go dude… FFS.

But FYI – we had a Neanderthal named Abbott as the (thankfully shortest serving) PM ever – iirc and this ridiculous MTM/FTTN/FRAUDBAND policy (inferior product, still with speed tiers, time frame blowout in years not months, cost blowout of UP TO ((lol)) $15B and costing the consumer as much or more for less performance etc, etc)?

So…. if a portion of customers can only get a maximum of 25Mbit because of their distance from the node, and another group with very short copper runs can get 100Mbit, is that not also creating a digital divide?

Wrong. Labor were forecasting > 20% on 100Mbps at this point in time and 250Mbps plans at > 1%.

> Still no idea of how a percentage works. What’s changed in the last 12 months? People started connecting to FTTN.

6,636 on FTTN versus 610,978 on FTTP, so I doubt that FTTN users are having a significant impact. We also know from another article on Delimiter that some FTTN customers are ordering the 100Mbps speed tier and achieving speeds close to the theoretical maximum when you take into account overheads.

What has changed is easy to identify. Early adopters tend to connect to the network earlier because they want the faster speeds. The late adopters are connecting to the network in greater numbers and choosing cheaper plans resulting in the fall in percentage of customers connecting at 100Mbps.

> Your dribble narrative is bunk.

Your lack of knowledge is disturbing. I would have expected you to at least check the facts attempting to argue your point. I provide references because it enables you to check the sources and verify that the numbers are correct.

If you evaluate Labor’s NBN Corporate Plan against what has actually been achieved, then the current 34% connected on fibre at 12Mbps versus Labor’s prediction of 50% is probably one of the closest to being correct. If Telstra offered a 12Mbps plan, then the 34% would be likely to rise.

Having said that, the 16% on 100Mbps is less than what Labor predicted which emphasises my key point that Labor’s FTTP has increased the digital divide and delivered the greatest benefit to the rich.

> But no, looks like we will be bombarded for years to come with a new set of “conservative estimations he’s so cleverly *sigh* plucked from past”.

In theory, I don’t have a problem with RSP’s underprovisioning to some extent so they can achieve a certain price point in the market and the market should judge them on that. The problem I have is the inability for the consumers in the market to make an informed choice and understand the difference in services they are purchasing that are essentially being advertised as the same thing by different providers.

RSP’s typically will tell you what is theortical possible rather than what you’ll actually receive. There are no uniform comparisons to compare the quality of what you’ll receive. e.g.
– The average throughput and latencies at specific times of the day
– The average number of outages per month or year of specific durations
– Service restoration times

I wish the ACCC would step in, much the same way they had to step in to bring a little more transparency to obfuscated telephony pricing.

> I wish the ACCC would step in, much the same way they had to step in to bring a little more transparency to obfuscated telephony pricing.

Pricing is very different to network performance. Mobile phone carriers do provide exit clauses if coverage is not available, but this tends to be easy to prove even for a novice. Standing at this point, can I make a phone call with good voice quality or not?

With yesterday’s outage Telstra will most likely have the worst reliability for a mobile phone operator this month by a long way.

What are valid measures for comparing the performance of RSPs?
– Do you only consider the performance before it leaves the RSP network? This would adversely impact on RSPs such as internode who have points of presence in the several countries.
– Do you measure the performance of certain sites? This would benefit those RSPs who have negotiated to co-locate content distribution servers at their data centres.
– Do you have end users run a program to gather metrics? if so, how do you ensure that the connection is being utilised only for the test and that the end user network doesn’t have issues (e.g. wireless connection to router is poor)?

One easy measure would be to measure at the utilisation at the PoI for each RSP. This would provide clear evidence of which RSPs had purchased insufficient capacity.

I think it’s a bit early to be claiming this is an issue that is unique to FTTN given the serious under-provisioning of CVC by almost all ISPs. Unless there is any actual evidence that this is an FTTN only issue I’m not believing what comes out of conroy’s mouth or the anecdotal / uninformed evidence by several customers.

But FTTN is the ridiculous choice we have now been lumbered with, so rightfully, the complaints relating to the chosen FTTN (previously referred to by those rolling it out as FRAUDBAND) are being aimed at FTTN.

I am in Gorokan and just switched to the 100mbps FTTN with TPG. The node is outside my house and I am experiencing the same issues as described in this article. At night the speeds slow to as little as 2mbps. My previous ADSL was faster and more stable than my new NBN connection.

I’m in Gorokan as well on a Telstra plan & am receiving a line rate of 40.5 Mbps down & 22.32 Mbps up. Repeated running of speed tests lines up with this. The connection has behaved this way for the ~3 months I have had it.

While I agree the article title is technically accurate I feel in this case it is misleading. Unless someone produces evidence to the contrary this comes across as a provider purchasing insufficient back haul (which seems to be a theme for Optus). You would see a similar problem on any technology (including FTTH / FTTP)

Love the BS about ALPs costs $2200-2500. That prediction, as we know, destroyed on reviewed and Quigley himself ($3700+700). The myths persist (cheerleaders).

NBNCo upgrade program a joke. I’ll save the next councillors money; subtract CP16 CPP of NBNCo’s chosen tech from the CPP of FTTP then multiply by number of premises. Leftoid councillors won’t be able to sell it to residents.

So if we use the FOD estimation from MT’s website as a guestimate of what it would cost to upgrade from FTTN to FTTP, we’re looking at a cost of $2,300 + $2,500 to go FTTN then to FTTP sometime in the future (not accounting for labour cost increases, and only using a figure he pulled out of the ether referencing BT in the UK), so.. $4800 CPP.

I just have to wonder… If even the LNP say that FTTP is the end-game, at what point is FTTN not worth it?

Yeah c’mon Derek, Dick isn’t interested in the real figures, he wants the “specially massaged and prepped Morrow Ergas-esque” figures… the one’s that really do it for him and the rest of the flat earthers…

@jk @rizz they don’t even understand the NBNco program the council applied for. The ignorance is extraordinary.

@tin re-read the post and link:
“Under the previous federal Labor government, direct fibre connections were estimated to cost between $2200 and $2500.”
Total rubbish. Clearly we’re in different trains.

Hadspen’s quote was for between $2.2-$2.7 million for its 1000 premises, or between $2200 and $2500 per building.

But if that’s the same price quigley was saying for CPP then it would be an upgrade wouldn’t it Richard lol to quigley figures are not destroyed lol before the change in the was to cost CPP which is now to cost everyone including OPEX as capex now
Extraordinary the spin with this one such bile lol

@jk not sure if you’ve been drinking. Earlier CPs budgets CPP of $2200-2500, however never reached those numbers. Quigleys PDF exposing FTTN blowouts confirmed it. This is very basic stuff.

Take the CPP of FTTN ($4400) then subtract the NBNCo technology choice eg FTTN $2300 to derive the per premise upgrade price (the program council applied for) $2100 (or $2000-2500 to allow a little wiggle room). Multiply that number by the number of premises. Saved you $10k! Ask your accountant to explain it to you.

We know the wholeale CVC price is $17.50 per mbps. Wholesale IP/Transit for telcos is about $10-20 per mbps

To supply a 100mbps service with 1:1 internet you need to spend $17.50 CVC + $15 Wholesale IP = $32.50 per mbps X 100 MBPS = $320.50 per 100mbps of internet. And thats a UBR QOS as well meaning that the packets are at mercy of higher priority traffic. It doesn’t count fixed expenses nor the fixed recurring charges for the tail, the racks and other charges the ISP incurs from its own network. The wholesale bandwidth costs only raises for the smaller ISPs as well. Not to mention the fact that there 120 POI that you have to setup bandwidth and what not to its a huge cost. Remember iiNet was saying that it would cost $40m to connect nationally to NBN.

So back to the bandwidth and contention ratios. If you have customers only pay $100 a month that means that you’ll be unable to give them 1:1 internet.

Considering the sorts of margins that Telcos make on the offerings I’d hazard that the ratio is more like 1000:1 i.e. you’ll have a 1000 mbps of customers tails/connectivity assigned to every 1 mbps of bandwidth you purchase

Thus the cost of bandwidth to a customer would be something like $3.20. Which makes sense considering out of the $100 a large chuck is eaten up by fixed costs and such.

Lastly user behaviour is a big deal in controlling how much bandwidth you buy. Its a deeply pyschological exercise.

If you tell a customer they have a whizz bang fancy 100 mbps internet service they’ll alter their behaviours. Where customers controlled their downloading on slowing narrowband services like ADSL this meant that you could operate at high contention ratios but with lower utilisation. Hence why Exetel went after the customers who were using far greater then the average.

With this NBN people are thinking that they’re getting a faster broader service. Which is theoretically true. So they use it in ways they wouldn’t have before. This sucks down the bandwidth thus causing problems. Optus is notoriously cheap on the provision of bandwidth.

In reality the CVC and the greed of the wholesale carriers is that they do not want these services to have lower contention ratios.

It would destroy the corporate market that spend an arm and a leg for 1:1 point to point ethernet over fibre services (imagine spending $20-50k a month per connection for a inter-capital network).

The entire concept of the NBN, what it was meant to do was crippled at the very start. By government, both labour and liberal who are beholden to either the big unions and executives who profit at the telcos (look at how many all former telco execs have been involved in government policy).

Add me to the list. With TPG on HAM2, node is 50m away, receive 75mbps connect which equates to around 65mbps during the day and a night it grinds to halt at between 2-3mbps.

Had stable 18mbps ADSL2+, annoyed that I was contacted to change my service over to the NBN and I receive worse internet then I already had when they are well aware of these issues.

Confused at why I should be paying for 100mbps and receiving 2mbps in the peak times I use it? Oh but it does say up to* 100, I wish my bill was to pay up to $100 a month and I could give them $2 instead.

Surprise surprise, You’re at it again. Do you understand IT at ALL. This is a contention issue NOTHING to do with FTTN in fact if is was FTTP it would be worse! Peak load issues don’t happen Last mile. They happen in Backhual. Whether that be at the ISP or on the NBN infrastructure. Most of the time this simply means the backhaul needs a quick upgrade or the ISP needs to increase there wholesale backhaul. Stop miss leading people with your Blog post masquerading as journalism. You know you twisted this do you own thought and the reality is FAR FAR different to the article you wrote.

“This is a contention issue NOTHING to do with FTTN in fact if is was FTTP it would be worse!”
Interesting assertion. Please point me to any post stating Optus/TPG FTTP slows to 3Mbps (from over 50) during peak hours.

“Peak load issues don’t happen Last mile. They happen in Backhual. ”
“This is a contention issue NOTHING to do with FTTN”
“Whether that be at the ISP or on the NBN infrastructure.”
Can you rewrite your post so that’s it’s slightly less obviously cringeworthily contradictory?

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